Position 15:52.46N 61:35.92W
Freewheel
Julian & Anne Whitlock
Mon 22 Nov 2010 13:45
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The Saintes - Guadeloupe - 16-17th
November
A long days sail up from Martinique anding
up with a tight beat up to the Saintes with the wind
coming around into the north east. As a
result it was dark by the time we dropped the anchor
behind the 'pain de sucre'. Again so few
boats - only one other in this anchorage. When we
were going down to Grenada in the summer it
was so busy here we couldn't find a place to
anchor so carried onto
Dominica!
The next morning we moved across to our
favourite anchorage - Ilet A Cabrit - and had a
long snorkel around the bay. The coral and
fish life were excellent and probably better
than we remember 5 years ago when our niece
and nephew were with us and learning to
dive here.
The wind was really howling now with very
large Atlantic seas coming in so it was
fascinating to see the wind surfers trying
to stay upright and needing rescuing by their
safety boats. Before lunch we set off for
Des Haies, a very nice and sheltered anchorage
at the top of Guadeloupe. As soon as we
cleared the shelter of our island we were into
gale force winds and 3 meter swells and a
short, fast sail to the relative shelter off the
main island Basse Terre. For the remainder
of the trip to Des Haies we were alternately
hit with up to 50kt squalls or dead calms
as the high mountains to windward sheltered
or funneled the wind at us. A wierd
experienec at Des Haies. At 1 a.m. we were woken
by cries for help both in French and
English. On getting into the cockpit we could see
a small dinghy deifting out to sea in the
fresh winds and a man standing up with one oar
appearing to try and make his way back into
the anchorage. As we were the furthest out
yacht we felt that it was us he was hailing
but then he started to yell that he was going
to kill us and board the yacht (again in
French and English!!) With some trepidation we
lifted the anchor and went out to rescue
him but on our approach he apologised and said
'he was in error and was ok'. He was a
white man of about 40 years of age who did not
appear to be drunk. As we could see that he
did have a second oar and could
therefore row in if he wanted to we motored
back and reanchored. However whilst
having a cup of tea to recover we once
again heard cries for help but this time much
further away. As the moonlight was now
obscured by cloud we could not see him so
decided to call the French Coastguard and
after a lengthy discussion with them they
agreed to send out a rescue
boat....
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